


running out of time

by hollyhobbit101



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [10]
Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare, The Wicked Powers Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Missions Gone Wrong, Unresolved Feelings, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, in which i lock these idiots in a cage so they can actually fucking talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26822140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyhobbit101/pseuds/hollyhobbit101
Summary: When (if) they got out of here, Kit wanted the record to unequivocally state that this wasn’t his fault. Not that it was Ty's either, but it certainly wasn't Kit's.orkit and ty's first hunt together after three years goes wrong and they wind up trapped in a cage with no way out. naturally, this leads to a heartfelt conversation.
Relationships: Tiberius Blackthorn/Kit Rook
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1691701
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57
Collections: Bad Things Happen, Whumptober 2020





	running out of time

**Author's Note:**

> guys full disclaimer it's been ages since i read queen and ghosts of the shadow market so i've forgotten how to write them whoops whoops
> 
> bad things happen bingo prompt - locked in a cage
> 
> whumptober day 4 - caged

When  _ (if)  _ they got out of here, Kit wanted the record to unequivocally state that this wasn’t his fault. Not that it was Ty’s either, but it certainly wasn’t Kit’s.

It was...an accident. A freak, completely unpredictable accident that was nobody’s fault. Kit had just been distracted, which meant he missed the trap, which led to them being trapped in this cage in a cave by the sea which would soon be flooded, with no visible way out.

Okay, so maybe it was kind of Kit’s fault.

Thing was, he hadn’t seen Ty in three years ever since Kit decided to go to Devon with Jem and Tessa. It wasn’t a decision he regretted, but he had missed Ty more than he wanted to admit, and he was totally unprepared to see him again. He was even less prepared to go on a hunt with him, despite all the training he and Jem had done. 

He was as good a fighter as anyone now, and Kit had figured that he and Ty would work well together, given...well, everything. They always had in the past. Or, almost always. But there had been three years of distance between them, and Kit felt that distance stronger than ever as he looked at Ty.

Ty was still just as beautiful as the day they had met, but it was a different sort of beauty now. Sharper, colder, even. His manner was the same; he’d barely spoken ten words to Kit since leaving Jem and Tessa’s house. It hurt, Kit had to admit it, but he knew that this was his fault, at least in part. 

He had been the one to leave first, after all.

Kit forced himself back to the present. He was alone with Ty; Livvy had left some time ago to scout potential ways out. It was...strange, being in a room with him again. Cage, that is.

“Ty?” he ventured.

“We’re running out of time,” Ty said. “The tide will likely be coming in soon - ideally I’d like to be out of here by then.”

Kit grimaced. “Yeah.” He chewed on his lip, considering his next move. A cage wasn’t the best place to be having this conversation, he knew that, but he also knew that they probably wouldn’t get a better chance. “I’m sorry.”

Ty paused for the briefest moment, then returned to feeling around the cage. “You don’t need to apologise,” he said. “It was partly my fault, too.”

Kit blinked, the realisation that they were not talking about the same thing coming slowly. When it does, he could kick himself. “Right, yeah, that too,” he started. “But I actually meant about before.  _ Before _ before. After the battle in Idris.”

Ty tensed almost imperceptibly. “We don’t have much time,” he reiterated. “I think I may have found something, come over here.”

Kit obliged, sighing. “Ty, we need to talk about this.”

“ _ You _ do,” Ty corrected. He motioned to a section of the cave’s wall close to the bars. “Try the Opening rune here.”

He did so, but the rune just sparked and died, fading as if it had never been there in the first place. Ty frowned, and Kit almost found the expression endearing. 

“I shouldn’t have left like that,” he said in a rush. “I was there, at Alec and Magnus’s wedding; I should have said goodbye.”

That seemed to get Ty’s attention. He turned and stared at Kit with a carefully neutral expression on his face. “Why didn’t you?”

Kit shrugged, shifting his gaze to the damp ground. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to argue, I guess. I wanted to remember you as you were then. Happy, that is. And… I thought you wouldn’t want to see me again after everything that happened.”

Ty was silent for a long time, and Kit couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking. He watched Ty’s hands move, fingers dancing over the stone, or coming to fiddle with something hanging around his neck. There was a small crease between his brows and he held his tongue between his teeth. 

Eventually, Ty looked back up at him, though his eyes quickly darted away again. “I would have,” he said quietly. “I asked Magnus where you were, but he didn’t tell me. I don’t know why.”

“Oh.” Kit didn’t know how to respond, but he was saved by Ty.

“Why did you say you loved me?” Ty asked. “By the Lake?”

Kit stared; he’d assumed Ty had forgotten that. “I meant it,” he answered honestly.

Something flashed in Ty’s eyes, but Kit couldn’t figure out exactly what. It hadn’t seemed like a bad thing, but he was three years out of practice at reading Ty.

Ty hummed, then turned away, conversation apparently over - this time, Kit had no interest in reviving it. He felt strangely hollow, almost disappointed, though he hadn’t expected anything more. Still.

His gaze shifted to Ty’s neck, his movements exposing the chains around it. Livvy’s locket; that must have been what Ty was holding earlier. And, next to it…

“You still have it,” Kit said, somehow surprised, even though he knew he probably shouldn’t be. “The heron necklace.”

Ty’s fingers closed protectively around the pendant. “Of course I do,” he said defensively. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Kit opened his mouth, then closed it just as quickly. There was no reason for Ty not to have the necklace, and every reason for him to have kept it. It was just… Well, Kit didn’t know what it was. 

Then, “Didn’t Magnus say you could summon him with it?” he asked, the realisation hitting him like a ton of bricks. 

Ty looked down at it, then back up at Kit, smiling for the first time since they’d met again. “Good thinking, Watson,” he said, and Kit felt a sort of warmth bloom in his chest at the nickname.

It wasn’t forgiveness, he thought as they waited for Magnus and Livvy. And if it was, he didn’t deserve it. But it was something. Progress, maybe. 

Kit smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> i am open to prompts on my tumblr @morganaspendragonss!


End file.
